No society can exist if respect for the law does not to some extent prevail; but the surest way to have laws respected is to make them respectable. W… - Frédéric Bastiat

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No society can exist if respect for the law does not to some extent prevail; but the surest way to have laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or of losing his respect for the law, two evils of which one is as great as the other and between which it is difficult to choose.

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About Frédéric Bastiat

Frédéric Bastiat (30 June 1801 – 24 December 1850) was an early free-market economist and classical liberal French author.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Claude Frédéric Bastiat Frederic Bastiat

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Additional quotes by Frédéric Bastiat

the purpose of the socialists is to suppress liberty of association precisely in order to force people to associate together in true liberty.)

Ninguna sociedad puede existir, si no impera en algún grado el respeto a las leyes; pero es el caso que lo que da más seguridad para que sean respetadas las leyes, es que sean respetables. Cuando la ley y la moral se encuentran en contradicción, el ciudadano se encuentra en la cruel disyuntiva de perder la noción de lo moral o de perder el respeto a la ley, dos desgracias tan grandes una como la otra y entre las cuales es difícil elegir.

It is worth our while to pay a little attention to the extent of genius required by these legislators, that we may see how, by confounding all the virtues, they showed their wisdom to the world.

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